Sunday, 13 September 2009

Death of a Publisher

I think I should say a few words about the sad news of Marion Boyar’s demise, which its publisher Catheryn Kilgarriff blames on excessive discounts and the increasing polarization and conglomeration of the book trade. I hope that, in the same way as Calder Publications was rescued by Oneworld Classics in 2007, some white nights will come to the rescue of this prestigious publisher.

Penguin will republish thirty-eight of Marion Boyars’ backlist titles in their classics series, and I hope there is some young entrepreneur out there who’s prepared to take on the challenge and drive forwards the programme initiated by Marion Boyars in 1975 and valiantly continued by her daughter Catheryn since 1999.

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Alessandro Gallenzi is the founder of Alma Books and Alma Classics, and the successor of John Calder at the helm of Calder Publications. As well as being a literary publisher, he is a translator, a poet, a playwright and a novelist. His collection of poetry Modern Bestiary - Ars Poetastrica was published in 2005 to critical acclaim and his novel Bestseller was published in 2010.

Alma Books publishes from fifteen to twenty titles a year, mostly contemporary literary fiction, taking around sixty per cent of its titles from English-language originals, while the rest are translations from other languages such as French, Spanish, Italian, German and Japanese. Alma Books also publishes two or three non-fiction titles each year.

Alma Classics aims to publish the greatest recognized masterpieces of all time, from every literature and genre, but also tries to redefine and enrich the classics canon by promoting unjustly neglected works of enduring significance. Recently Alma Classics launched Overture Publishing, which provides a series of beautifully produced opera and classical-music guides which are unique in the English language.